


Oh, Simple Thing

by missmichellebelle



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Obnoxious CrissColfering, Romance, Secret Relationship, Sentimental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fought. They broke up. They kissed and made-up. They were jealous. They were angry. They cried themselves to sleep. They put themselves back together again. They almost called it quits, almost gave up, so many times. They were in love, are in love, and they knew and know the price of what they have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, Simple Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drosophilase (fruitflyxo)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=drosophilase+%28fruitflyxo%29).



> Written for Bee's birthday. <3

Everything is still raw around the edges, and Chris isn't quite sure if it's in a good way or a bad way. It feels like his entire body has been wrapped up in bandages for the last six years, and he's finally been allowed to take them off. It's so much fresh air that it _burns_ , but that doesn't stop it from feeling good, from feeling freeing.

If it feels this way for him, he can only imagine what it feels like for Darren. He suspects, rather than bandages, it felt like dropping chains or shackles. It certainly looks like he's walking around without anything dragging him down.

It's different and it's new, it's scary and exciting. It's full of anticipation, like the longest climb to the top of a roller coaster, knuckles turning white as they grip hard with anxiety. Chris has little expectation of the drop on the other side, mostly because he knows how life works by now. He can't predict how things will turn out, or what life will be like once they do this, but they're doing it. They've waited long enough, and they already metaphorically tipped the first domino (side-by-side, hand-in-hand, together).

It's a process. The slowest domino cascade in the history of domino cascades. It has to be done carefully, and done right, but just knowing that he's finally doing something (that _they're_ finally doing something) is enough to make it feel like the entire world is shifting beneath his feet. It'll take time, and it'll be exhausting, but it's no more of a game than the one they've been playing for years now.

Public appearances happen differently. People are faded out like they were never there to begin with. Pictures are taken at events, and there's no orchestration, no underlying reminder of _don't get too close, don't show too much_. When Chris is dressed up in suits, he doesn't feel a knot of dread in his stomach anymore from knowing he'll have to wear so much more than designer threads and his _Chris the actor/writer/gay rights activist_ mask. He still has a persona to live in, to wear like an extra skin, but it's just the one now, not a dozen.

They don't do anything over-the-top or cheesy. They don't go out of their way to make it suspicious or obvious. But they don't try to hide. Darren has a concert, and Chris doesn't take five hundred protective measures to go and see it—he just goes. They go to a concert with a group of friends and all leave together, and the internet is plastered with the pictures. They go out to lunch together once, just them, and there's one grainy picture that a fan took on a cellphone.

Chris never wanted a life like this, where every inch of him was exposed to the critical microscope of the world at large. He'd never expected to be put into a place where he would have to, making a deal with himself during his first season on Glee when things started getting bigger than he ever imagined and the things he could control slipped through his fingers like smoke. Chris had always seen himself outside of the spotlight, keeping everything locked behind closed doors. But the locks come with a hefty price that's exhausting to maintain.

Chris had also never expected Darren, and Darren certainly hadn't expected Chris, but maybe that's how the best things happen. The things that require the most risk, but end up being worth the most. And Chris knew, he _knew_ , the second he took Darren's hand and said, " _okay_ ," that he couldn't keep his deal. If he wanted Darren, and all the things Darren represented, he was going to have to rewrite a lot of things.

And he did.

They fought. They broke up. They kissed and made-up. They were jealous. They were angry. They cried themselves to sleep. They put themselves back together again. They almost called it quits, almost gave up, so many times. They were in love, _are_ in love, and they knew and know the price of what they have.

Chris will always think Darren is paying more, no matter how much Darren grips his hands and stares at him in silent apology like _Chris_ is the one who is suffering more. Chris knows that the quiet, backstage life he wants is not something he can have. Darren can't be a vaguely kept secret, not when the world knows his name and not when he looks at Chris like the notion alone _pains_ him.

"I'm not trying to hide you." That's what Chris always says, because it's not the same thing at all. He wants to hide his _own_ life, but then… Darren's apart of that, and doesn't he deserve some say in it?

In a way, it's a relief. Chris wonders, maybe, if he just thought he wanted the secret. He thinks what he really wanted, really _needed_ , was for Darren to lace their fingers together and say, "I want to be able to walk down the street and do this." Like it's the simplest thing in the world.

Because Chris complicates things, but Darren… Darren knows how to make things so impossibly _simple_.

There are compromises made. They come to decisions, together, and bicker over details and scenarios and spend too much time on different phones to different people ironing things out.

It's a process.

And then it's almost over, and Chris feels like he's suffocating on too much air and he isn't quite sure how that's even possible.

"Did you change your mind?" Darren asks softly, just like he has almost every day. Most of the time, Chris smacks him. Some times, those times when Chris thinks Darren really means it, Chris kisses the doubt right out of him. Today, he reaches across the space between them where they're lying on the bed and takes his hand.

"No, just…" Chris smiles a little weakly, shrugging his shoulder that isn't pressed against the mattress, and Darren nods. Because Darren knows. He squeezes Chris hands and smiles reassuringly.

"I still say you just instagram a video of us making out, it would be a lot easier," Darren jokes.

"You just want an excuse to make out," Chris quips back, thankful for the way Darren just knows when it's too much.

"Like I need an _excuse_." Darren rolls his eyes, exaggeratedly, and Chris grins at him. He slips his hand from Darren's and drags it slowly up the bed, sliding it up Darren's chest to his shoulder, then over his neck and jaw until his fingers can play with Darren's curls. Darren's eyes slip nearly closed, instantly relaxed by the touch, as he smiles lazily and hums in the back of his throat.

"You know how before you go on a big trip, you get overstrung and nervous? You've been planning it for so long, and suddenly you wonder if maybe you forgot something, or did something wrong, or what if something _does_ go wrong and you _do_ forget something and everything falls apart?" Chris's voice is quiet, but it picks up speed as he nerves take hold of him. But then Darren just reaches up and closes his hand over Chris's extended forearm, and it shouldn't help as much as it does.

"No. I know that happens to you before you go on a trip, and you snap at me for days before because I haven't packed yet, and how can I live my life that scatter-brained?" Darren's voice picks up a little higher at the end, as if he's mimicking Chris, and Chris's eyes dart away.

"I don't call you _scatter-brained_."

"Yes." Darren sounds amused. "Yes, you do." Chris huffs, and he feels Darren move his head around beneath his palm. "But that's okay, because I'm there to assure you that _yes_ , the car is scheduled, and _yes_ , you locked the front door, and _yes_ , Brian will be fed and the plants will be watered." Darren laces their fingers together, then, but keeps them in his hair and Chris just affectionately shakes his head. "I don't have any definitive responses right now, Chris. I'm not going to say I'm not nervous, or scared, but… We did everything we could do, we've taken all the steps we had to. Whatever happens after all this, well… We take it together, right?"

"You are the biggest sap," Chris responds, even though his throat feels a little thick, and Darren pouts.

"You fucking suck when it comes to sentiment, why can't you let me have my romantic moments?" Darren whines, and Chris nudges at the front of his calf with his toes.

"Someone has to keep you in line," Chris replies, fondly, and Darren just sighs heavily. "If I let you have all the romantic moments you try to have, I probably would have gotten rid of you years ago," Chris says, with no sense of threat whatsoever.

"Ha ha," Darren mutters, dryly, and then flips on his back, reaching behind him. Chris watches, confused and also wishing Darren had let go of his hand first because the reach is stretching his arm past the point of comfort.

Darren flips back onto his side so that they're face to face again, and then drops a small box on the bed. Chris stares at it.

"It's a good thing I always have multiple romantic moments up my sleeve."

Chris's gaze shifts up to Darren.

"I was waiting to do this another time, but… Now works."

There's a few seconds of silence, and a part of Chris wars with the idea that this is some kind of _proposal_ , one side of him wishing and one side of him pushing away. But Darren doesn't say anything else, and so Chris shifts his hand out from Darren's fingers and unties the beautiful indigo ribbon tying the box closed.

"Another cuff?" Chris looks up at Darren, eyebrows scrunched together, but Darren's face gives nothing away. The cuff is a little thinner than the one he normally wears, the color more brown than black. It has a series of three thin, raised bands running down the middle, and a beautiful decorative stitching along the outside.

"It can hold your charm, too," Darren whispers, and Chris blinks in surprise, looking up at him as he continues to run the leather beneath his fingertips. It's stiff, and the underside is a little scratchy. It's not worn-in and comfortable, aged with love and memories. It's absolutely new.

"But—" Chris starts to say, and then Darren catches his hand, pressing the leather between their palms.

"Hear me out a minute?" Darren's eyes are big, pleading, like he is so terrified of Chris turning down this cuff. Like it matters. Like Chris doesn't have a cuff sitting on his dresser, one that Darren has looped his fingers through and over, has unfastened to kiss the skin underneath. But Chris just nods, holding Darren's gaze.

"I know you love your other cuff. That cuff is just… It's a part of you. Fuck, at this point, it's a part of us, isn't it?" Darren chuckles, and Chris smiles. "And I'm not going to like, burn it or anything. You'd probably dump my ass if I did—" Chris rolls his eyes, "—but the point is that that cuff? It represents us as we were, you know? Hidden, a secret, something…" Darren trails off, and his fingertips drop to Chris's bare wrist, brushing over it reverently. "That's not what we are anymore, and I thought… Maybe it's time to start a new chapter in our life."

Chris gapes at him for a moment, his heart thudding in his chest and feeling like it's swelling from the wash of emotions that's rushing through him suddenly. He blinks, and swallows, and dully notes that the arm he's laying on is falling asleep.

"With a cuff?" He finally croaks out, his voice only slightly sardonic but enough so that Darren gives him an exasperated look.

"Yes, with a cuff." Darren gives him a stern, yet teasing, look, lifting Chris's wrist and then snapping the cuff into place. His eyes soften as he does so, and the next thing Chris knows, Darren is lifting Chris's knuckles to his mouth and kissing them.

"Sap," Chris whispers with not the slightest bit of maliciousness, and Darren smiles up his arm at him. "Does this mean I should get you a new ring?"

The question falls heavily, and Chris's eyes widen as he realizes all of the things an actual ring would symbolize. Darren presses his lips to the backs of Chris's fingers, not kissing them, but resting them there, his nose pressed to the back of Chris's hand.

"If you want to," he answers, muffled. Chris's gaze shifts from Darren's eyes to the cuff on his wrist, and later he'll wonder if there's supposed to be more to this kind of decision. If there's supposed to be a list of pros and cons, or a day of reflection where he sifts through memories and strengthens the feelings that already feel like they overtake him at times.

But none of that happens now. He looks at Darren, and he smiles.

Darren makes things so simple.

"Not yet," Chris responds, softly. "But… I think maybe soon."


End file.
